That feltish covering on certain types of jewelery boxes.
When I was kid I used to think that they used this material to protect the precious contents, since it is such an effective deterrent against handling. I further believed that this was the primary reason that thieves put on gloves before going to work.
I was mystified when I learned that most people could handle them without wanting to throw themselves down a flight of stairs to make it stop!
Coulrophobia. And clowns aren’t innocuous. They’re horrible. ::shudder::
I’m with you on the nasty feet. Especially on men. I know it’s probably a cultural thing for certain guys to wear sandals all the time but…ugh. Dude, your feet are nasty. If you absolutely must do it, please wash them, do something about all that disgusting dead skin, and get your toenails done. It’ll still be gross, but at least it won’t be thoroughly icky.
Oh, and mayonnaise. Especially on hamburgers, mixed with ketchup. No offense to anybody who likes this (and if you do, you might want to stop reading now) but to me it always looks like the result of squeezing a very large pimple. Ugh!
You’re the second person to mention the mayonnaise thing. My ex-husband and his entire family hated mayonnaise. He called it “mayozine”. He said because of it’s greasiness, to him it would be like putting Vaseline on his burger… yuck!
I actually don’t mind it in very small doses, spread thinly (and the operative word here is thinly!) on a chicken or ham and cheese sandwich. As long as I can’t see any evidence of it clumping up, I’m okay. Restaurants do *not *understand the concept of “thinly spread” so I gave up ever trying to get it anywhere but on my own handmade sandwiches.
When banana’s get over ripe, I can’t eat them. but I don’t have any problem looking at, peeling and squishing them with a fork for banana bread.
Everything else I can think of that squicks me out in some way doesn’t really count as innocuous. Unless mealy apples are innocuous - yuck!
I really like the windmill fields here in Iowa. Its usually a good sized group in one area and I stare at them when I’m the passenger as we drive by. (I stare a little when I’m the driver too, but you can’t really get a full-on good stare going when you’re driving.)
Me too! And the smell makes me gag!!
Are we related??
My list of eek-inducing things is quite long (Although I’ve probably forgotten quite a few; I’ve been thinking about it as I read the thread x) Not all of them are things you look at, but anyway here goes:
I don’t know if the rest really count as ‘innocuous’ but anyway:
Well, that was an insanely long post 
You know what really freaks me out?
Zombies!
Tattoos on women. Don’t care about them on men, but a woman with any tattoo bigger than a quarter just makes me ill. This is one of those things that have gotten more prominent over the last twenty-five years and the more I see it, the more it disgusts me. I especially hate it when the girl in question gets tattooed someplace that I know had to be painful.
The fill-in chick on Mythbusters, Jessie Combs (sp?), I used to think was kinda cute, until one episode she raised her left arm… and I saw she has a large tattoo… in her armpit…
Pardon me while I find the nearest bucket.
(Just kidding. Real-world olives are gross. Theoretical olives are more my thing.)
I don’t even like to look at ketchup while I’m eating.
I’m sorry to see so much anti-slug bias here. I like slugs.
I don’t know if my thing is innocuous, but I have a hatred of mold that probably qualifies as a phobia. I’m sure most people are mildly grossed out by it, but I’ve been known to throw out perfectly good containers in the trash just so I don’t have to look at spoiled food. I have nightmares about mold. The most horrifying story I’ve ever read is The Cask of Amontillado.
Also, I’m allergic to it. So at least there’s a somewhat rational reason for my fear.
Those small chocolate eggs with candy eggshell, especially the feel of them rubbing against each other in the bag. Of course, I have nothing against normal chocolate eggs, or real eggs.
Being lost, or even thinking that I might maybe be lost. I come from a family that completely and utterly lacks the direction gene. I freak out if I’m in a familiar place, but it looks unfamiliar.
About a month ago I was two blocks from my house, and nothing looked familiar. Total freakout.
Injections, IV’s, blood tests- don’t bother me in the least. I used to inject myself regularly (for allergies)-- nothing to it. Someone else getting stuck- so what.
BUT:
WATCHING someone else take a blood sample from MY arm makes my head spin. If I don’t look, I couldn’t be less bothered. If I look, I pass out.
Human feet. Male, female, clean, dirty, it doesn’t matter. I have a foot aversion. I don’t even like looking at drawings of feet. Feet are ugly, disgusting, and repulsive.
A few months ago I was hanging out with my Aunt, who has a notoriously good sense of direction, and she took a wrong turn somewhere. We got back on track pretty easily… maybe five or ten minutes of wandering about… but it really bothered her. She was so uncomfortable that she wouldn’t calm down until she had taken out a map and figured out exactly where she’d been and how she got off track.
Me, I’m perpetually lost, so I couldn’t relate at all. Being lost is just… my natural state of being. I’ve learned to get out of confusing locations by asking myself what my gut says - and then doing the opposite. 
Wow, how do you all manage to go outside without having a mental freakout?
Funny, just last week I was thinking about this thread. I was boiling some rigatoni, and when I went to check on it, all of them were standing on end, so it looked like a bunch of holes. Freaky!